


Barking at the Sun

by Marmalaid



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Short One Shot, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-28 04:54:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11410641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marmalaid/pseuds/Marmalaid
Summary: A Short One Shot.Every day over that long hot summer, I walked by just to catch a peek at Jim. Him working on cars while I strained my neck to keep him in view.





	Barking at the Sun

I was gone with the smoke. Fires burned, as suffocation knocked on my lungs and kicked at my feet. Jim from up the road used to smoke cigs and race up the drag, it took me back to that. Mama felt she knew better all about this and thought she had snuffed it out of me. Never did like Jim, did she? Just like barking at the sun.

Walking home my bag in tow, raising brown dust and clinking. I crept in the shade at a snail's pace to keep Jim’s giant but lean figure in view. Cooked noodles were more stable than when I caught glimpses of his ash blond hair and storm-torn seafoam eyes. Those eyes made the stars in the sky bleak and dull compared to how his shimmered. Strolling by every day, catching a glimpse of him was like being allowed to try any pastry you wanted from a high-end bakery. Sugary eye candy that makes your mouth pool with water as you analyze its every detail. That’s why I always take a long way round from the gym after a morning workout, to get my fill of Jim. Because he withstood the glare of the sun as he fixed up, washed and polished people’s vehicles.  
My head flooded with his looks and how I had come to know him without ever meeting him. Sneaking peeks at school, spending my summer mornings fitting going to the gym with his car work. Like a lost pup I would keep circling by, never actually getting close enough or talking to Jim. I had built up a way to distance myself from him while at the same time to invest deeper into every little detail I inspected. I was nothing but a lovesick stalker, Jello around him and vigilant about him. I couldn’t help the tightening in my throat and pain in my chest as I shuffled along the path.  
It wasn’t only him who had made me feel completely entranced, others did too of course. Almost daily I was pulled into a personality or a new face that fit my fantasies and made my heart skip. Jim was just the only constant one, one that I would always come back to enjoy again. Like an actor, someone loves to watch on screen and goes to the movies mostly for them not necessarily the film itself. He would almost always be around to walk by each morning for me to picture my heart pounding, heated fantasies.  
My stomach would always sink as Jim’s perfect form disappeared from sight as I had to turn the corner and keep moving. But when I was home safe from the eyes of others I was free to indulge into the world I had to contain my own Jim. Sometimes it was us together on a beach -I have never been to the ocean- other times we stay inside and he studies me just as I have studied him. I would shower, eat, and go about my day, collected on the outside while drowning in warm details shared with Jim. In my world he was never a stranger, instead, he was a charming guy who knew all the little buttons to push instead of being simply a pretty guy I have seen around town. The pounding in my chest and dryness in my throat as he blurred by on a glossy cranberry motorcycle. I shot up and over at the sound nearly gasping at the calm hands hanging off the bike handles one with a white cigarette. Hanging off the porch I watched as he speed down the strip, just as quickly as he came.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a year ago in 2016. I tried to keep the narrator/main character purposely ungendered. Please let me know what you think and if there are any mistakes!


End file.
